Manchester United fans will “join forces” with rival supporters in a joint protest against “rising ticket prices” at the country’s top clubs in an extraordinary move.
Mike Keegan (Daily Mail) reveals Red Devils will come together with fans from “Everton and Liverpool and Manchester City” to condemn the increase in costs for match going supporters.
🚨 This feels big: Fans of Manchester United and Everton and Liverpool and Manchester City will join forces to protest against rising ticket prices at Old Trafford and Anfield this weekend. More @MailSport shortly.
— Mike Keegan (@MikeKeegan_DM) November 28, 2024
Tweet: “This feels big: Fans of Manchester United and Everton and Liverpool and Manchester City will join forces to protest against rising ticket prices at Old Trafford and Anfield this weekend.”
United announced plans to increase ticket prices to £66 and abolish concessions this week – a move described by one supporters group as a “disgusting low blow”.
MUST penned an open letter to Chief Executive Omar Berrada, contending the club’s decision was a “disgrace” with the group protesting it in the “strong possible terms”.
@imust.bsky.social have written a letter to #MUFC CEO Omar Berrada, labelling the ticket price rises a “disgrace” in solidarity with match-going fans 💪
— The Peoples Person (@peoplesperson.bsky.social) 2024-11-28T11:53:35.168Z
MUST have requested United “pause these changes” and initiate conversations with the club’s leading supporters groups to “establish, in conjunction with all three bodies, the consultation plan that will govern next year’s ticketing decisions.”
It’s the latest in a growing list of cost-cutting measures implemented by INEOS in the early period of Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s tenure as the club’s co-owner, after being ratified by the Premier League in February.
The Petrochemical giant are famed, or notorious (depending on your view), for taking over underperforming companies and streamlining them in brutal fashion to strip them down, before rebuilding them back up.
It’s no surprise, therefore, that Ratcliffe has overseen such a process at one of the country’s most underperforming institutions, inside or outside of sport, in the Red Devils. But this latest move appears to have enraged the fanbase in a way other decisions had not; and it’s an anger mirrored by supporter’s bitter rivals.
United host Everton on Sunday at Old Trafford at 1:30pm, while two-and-half hours later, Liverpool and Man City will face off at Anfield.
All four sets of fans are planning a coordinated protest at their club’s respective decisions over ticket price increases – an almost unprecedent union between rival clubs.
The Daily Mail reveals, “United group FC58 will hold an anti-exploitation banner alongside travelling Evertonians at the Trinity Statue outside Old Trafford.”
“In the later kick-off, fans from Liverpool’s Spirit of Shankly will join City’s 1894 and MCFC Fans Foodbank Support outside the foodbank collection point near the corner of the Kop and Kenny Dalglish stands.”
Perhaps only the outrageous decision by the Premier League’s elite three years ago – to join a new European Super League, in favour of the existing Champions League, which sparked enormous public backlash from fans of every top six club, including United – offers a similar type of scenario and widespread condemnation.
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Darragh Fox
Darragh is a writer for The Peoples Person who spent three years as a history graduate slowly realising football was by far the most interesting thing to write about.
